Top officials and board members of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority spent about $466,000 on business and travel expenses from 2003 to 2006.

The expenses included stays at five-star hotels, alcohol purchases, first-class plane tickets, gifts to industry experts, and about 240 trips to places such as Bermuda, Hawaii, London, New Zealand, Paris, the Philippines and Tokyo.

The four-year-old authority paid about $665,000 in relocation benefits to entice 10 new executives to move to San Diego. That includes about $195,000 in closing costs paid on the homes bought and sold by executives.

The authority often paid for temporary housing for new executives, with monthly rents as high as $4,175. The authority also picked up bills for cable television, furniture rentals, utilities and house cleaning.

Even before county voters last fall rejected Miramar Marine Corps Air Station as the spot for a new airport, questions were being raised about how the public agency in charge of the project was spending its money.

The San Diego County Regional Airport Authority had only been in existence since January 2003, and it had spent about $15 million on studies that led to Miramar's selection – a choice that 62 percent of the voters turned down.

The ballot measure put the authority in the spotlight and prompted taxpayer advocates and state lawmakers, including Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, to push for change.

Until now, the main criticism has focused on the choice of Miramar, but a review of the authority's travel and business expenses is causing a new level of angst.

From 2003 through 2006, the authority's top officials and board members spent about $466,000 on business and travel expenses, according to documents The San Diego Union-Tribune obtained through public records requests.

The money paid for expensive meals, alcohol, first-class plane tickets, San Diego Padres tickets, gifts to industry experts and trips to conferences in Bermuda, Hawaii, New Zealand and Paris.

The authority also spent about $665,000 to recruit top executives to San Diego.

Kehoe has said authority board members didn't take their fiscal responsibilities seriously enough. She said the newspaper's findings trouble her and highlight the need for change.

“It does not sit well with me,” she said. “I think the people of San Diego deserve better.”

The airport authority runs Lindbergh Field and has been charged with finding a location for a new regional airport. It is headed by a nine-member board that includes three executive members who make $171,648 annually.

Kehoe's bill to revamp the authority won approval in the state Senate this month. The measure, which now goes to the Assembly, would eliminate the three executive board positions and create a taxpayer oversight committee to review the agency's spending.

Thella Bowens, the authority's president and chief executive, said the travel expenses are necessary if the authority is going to attract business to Lindbergh Field.

“There's a lot more to it than just what you spend,” Bowens said. “Sometimes you have to spend to get. . . . We try not to be extravagant.”

One trip was to London in 2003 to persuade Virgin Atlantic Airways to make international flights to San Diego.

The trip's cost was more than $47,000, including about $10,000 in expenses for a consultant and a Qualcomm executive. They were invited along in case Virgin wanted to hear their perspectives on the advantages of such flights. They joined four authority officials, and all stayed at a five-star hotel for two nights.

One night, five of them had a dinner that cost $536 – or about $107 per person.

So far, Virgin Atlantic has not opted to book flights to San Diego. Bowens said it is not unusual to spend as many as six years trying to lure an international flight.

As for the trip's expense, Bowens said the $536 meal at the Angela Hartnett restaurant in The Connaught hotel was not that expensive considering the exchange rate works against U.S. currency.

“Have you been to London recently?” Bowens said. “Well, $107 per person is not a five-star restaurant, and that's the real reason why we probably . . . don't have a (spending) cap on meals.”

Bowens didn't seek reimbursement for the $154 bottle of wine the group had.

The trip was one of about 240 taken by the agency's top officials since the airport authority was created.

Before 2003, the San Diego Unified Port District ran Lindbergh Field, but the Legislature in 2001 approved setting up an independent airport authority. The goal was to consolidate airport operations and land-use powers as well as find a location for a new airport.

The port was no stranger to criticism for its travel expenses. Port commissioners spent nearly $700,000 on travel from 1997 to 2000. The port changed its travel policies three months after the Union-Tribune reported on the spending.

The airport authority adopted a similar travel policy, allowing first-class domestic travel and preapproved alcohol purchases in some cases.

Change is on the horizon. The authority board welcomed seven new members in December and January, and they have already begun work on altering the travel policy. Specifically, the board is looking at eliminating first-class domestic travel and alcohol purchases.

Alan Bersin, the board's new chairman, said the authority is unlike most other public agencies. It doesn't use tax dollars. It collects revenue from fees that passengers, airlines and vendors pay through ticket surcharges, rent and concessions.

Authority officials say that fundamental difference gives them leeway to operate more like a business than a taxpayer-funded agency. Still, none disputed that airport revenue is public money.

Most authority officials interviewed for this article acknowledged that changes are needed, but they defended many of the expenses found in their receipts.

Authority officials say the trips are necessary for training and to maintain accreditation in specialty fields, such as finance.

Authority officials also took about 80 trips with specific business purposes.

Hosting a group of industry experts for a $1,681 dinner – $93 per person – that included alcohol at Rainwater's on Kettner in downtown San Diego last year. Each of the eight guests received a $100 pair of binoculars as a gift. Ten authority officials attended the dinner.

Bowens said the dinner and gifts were a thank-you to the aviation experts for taking the time to review the airport site-selection process. She had the alcohol purchases preapproved, as the authority's policy requires.

The dinner occurred about a year after an internal audit showed that the agency improperly paid for $417 worth of alcoholic drinks at a 2003 retreat. Then-Chairman Joe Craver repaid the sum after the audit.

Paying for about $7,700 in staff-appreciation activities, such as barbecues, lunches and hundreds of tickets to San Diego Padres games.

Spending as much as $3,700 for first-class round-trip flights to Washington, D.C. A typical coach flight would cost $250 to $600.

Last year, former board member Xema Jacobson flew first-class to an aviation conference in Hawaii at a cost of $2,493 – nearly five times as much as the same flight for her board colleague, San Diego Councilman Tony Young. He flew coach at a cost of $546.

Two former board members – Jacobson and Lemon Grove Mayor Mary Sessom – took far more trips than the other seven board members.

Jacobson, one of three executive board members who made $171,648 annually, took 27 trips in four years at a cost of about $66,300, including to Hawaii (three times), the Philippines and Tokyo.

Craver and William Lynch, the other two executive board members, took a combined 18 trips in four years at a total cost of about $22,300. They never traveled outside the United States.

Sessom, one of six board members who received a $100-per-meeting stipend, had more than $38,000 in travel expenses during her four-year term on the board, including trips to Hawaii (twice), Paris, Shanghai and Tokyo. She makes $10,584 annually as mayor.

Bowens took 60 trips totaling $113,341 to places such as New Zealand, Tokyo, the Philippines and Portugal, where she picked up a “Best Domestic Airport” award in 2004.

Business trips shouldn't be viewed as vacations, Bowens said. The authority was starting its organization from the ground up and had new employees to train, she said.

“People think that conferences and seminars are for people to go and have fun and do all these crazy things, but that's not why people go,” Bowens said. “They go, they do their business, and they come home.”

Kehoe said she thinks Lindbergh Field is well-run, but she still has questions about the authority's spending practices.

“These are public dollars, and there's a public trust here,” she said. “The whole operation should have more sunshine on it.”

Lani Lutar, president of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, called the authority's travel and business expenses “outrageous and unacceptable.”

“These are such egregious examples of wasteful uses of public dollars,” she said.

Authority officials say they should be judged on how well the airport is run and point to the dozens of awards the agency has received.